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Tom Cruise Breaks Ankle During 'Mission Impossible: 6' Stunt, Production to Go on Hiatus

Tom Cruise is taking a break from Mission: Impossible 6.

Just three days after news broke that the 55-year-old actor was injured while performing a stunt on the film's London set, Paramount Pictures confirms that Cruise broke his ankle in a statement released to ET on Wednesday.

"During production on the latest Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt," the statement reads. "Production will go on hiatus while Tom makes a full recovery, and the film remains on schedule to open July 27, 2018."

"Tom wants to thank you all for your concern and support and can't wait to share the film with everyone next summer," the statement adds.

Director Christopher McQuarrie also spoke out on the incident this week, telling EmpireOnline.com, "Tom is great. He's in very good spirits."

"He's feeling great about the movie. Very excited in general," McQuarrie continues. "When I went to see him, the first thing he said when I walked in the room was, 'Dude, my ankle's broken.' Without missing a beat, I said, 'There's a silver lining to this cloud. We just don't know what it is yet.'"

"You never stop working," he explains. "You simply rearrange the order in which you were going to do certain things on the movie. This in fact gives us an opportunity to go into editorial and look at what we've shot and reassess the movie, which is a luxury you don't normally have because you're on a train that just doesn't stop ... we've already shot a huge chunk of the movie so you're just taking a big chunk of post-production and moving it up sooner. Then we go back to shooting when the hiatus is over, which is to the full benefit of the movie."

As for what actually led to Cruise's injury? McQuarrie gives the outlet a play-by-play of what happened.

"The speculation was that Tom had somehow missed or fell short. The truth is that the stunt was never designed for Tom to jump from rooftop to rooftop which, a) would have been pretty boring and b) when you see the actual shot you'll understand how it was designed," he says. "Also, when you look at what was posted on the internet, you can see Tom do the same stunt multiple times. He was always supposed to slam into the side of the building. That’s what gives the stunt its energy."

"He was completely safe the entire time he was doing that," McQuarrie adds. "He was padded. What happened is a matter of coordinating what Tom is doing with what the camera is doing, which means you have to do it a number of times. And on the fourth try, he hit the building at a slightly different angle and he broke his ankle."